Wanderer of the DEAD
by Linkonpark100
Summary: Jiro Hinomura’s death had left an impact on his son, Hikari. When an outbreak causes a panic in all of Tokonosu City, Hikari must try to survive and find the truth about THEM. An AU harem.


The sound of a baby crying had been echoed throughout the entire operating room as the birthing was completed. The doctors let out a sigh of relief as the it looked healthy. The female doctor had gently down as she cleaned it up. The doctor wearing a surgical mask took a closer look it.

"A boy," he muttered, his surgical mask ruffled slightly upwards. "We've got a son, Chiaki! A beautiful, healthy baby boy!"

A female voice sighed in relief by the baby's side. "Oh Jiro, we did it. A son! A beautiful...son."

The masked doctor, Jiro, held him and lowered his mask. "You've got a bright future ahead of you, son. I'm sure of it."

He smiled and gave a wave. "I'm your daddy, little guy. Daddy! Well, you're going to need a name. Your mother and I have been talking. What do you think about Hikari? The little light that brights up our lives. That's a good name, isn't it? It fits you real perfectly. See that, Chiaki?"

His wife could only smile and laugh in happiness as she took a look at little Hikari, having a bit of trouble breathing. "Oh...he's going to be handsome in the future."

"It's going to be a big world out there, son. All sorts of people to meet and places to go," Jiro pondered. "I wonder what you'll be in the future?"

However, the electrocardiogram began to beep rapidly as Chiaki's breaths began to get ragged. "Jiro...something's..."

"Chiaki!" Jiro exclaimed in worry as he checked the machine. "She's in cardiac arrest! Start the compression! Get Hikari out of here now!"

The female doctor quickly scooped up the baby out of the room.

"Come on Chiaki, you can make it..." Jiro muttered, hoping to keep his wife alive.

Everything faded to white. The beeps stopped, as the machine droned out a flatline.

 **XXX**

"Come on now," Jiro gently called out as he stood inside a playpen designed for his newborn son. "Don't look straight into the light now. You'll hurt your eyes."

One-year old Hikari squinted as he looked at his father.

"Come on over here, Hikari," he clapped.

Slowly, Hikari began to stand up and tried to walk into his playpen.

"Come to daddy," Jiro encouraged further.

Soon, the infant had reached his father while maintaining his balance.

"There you go," he smiled. "Just a year old and already walking like a pro."

Jiro sighed wistfully, though he kept a smile. "Your mother would have been so proud."

He walked out of the playpen and closed the pen's gate. "Listen, kiddo. I know you don't like it when daddy leaves you. But I need you to take care of yourself for a minute."

"You just stay here for a minute while daddy has to make a phone call to Uncle Souchiro," Jiro said. "You'll be okay, I'll be back in a minute."

As soon as he left the room, little Hikari slowly got up to maintain his balance before walking to the playpen's gate. He began to walk to the toy trunk and took out his teddy bear before sitting down to read one of the nursery books that were lying on the ground.

Once Jiro walked back into the room, he smiled and chuckled. "Well aren't you quite the little explorer. Serves me right for trying to pen you in."

He took his hand as he led Hikari out of the room. "Now let's go see your little friend Saya."

Soon, everything faded to white.

 **XXX**

"I'm Rei! It's nice to meet you!" The orange-haired girl responded cheerfully. "You must be Hikari!"

"Uh, hi," Hikari replied shyly, surprised that someone wanted to know him. Saya was sick today, so he thought that it would be a quiet day. He was surprised when another classmate wanted to meet him.

"So what's the deal with that pink-haired girl, Takagi?" Rei asked. "I didn't think someone like you would hang out with her."

"Well, my daddy knows her mom and dad," Hikari answered. "He said that they were family friends."

"Can I be on your family friend?" Rei asked. "It sounds really cool!"

The boy blinked before he slowly nodded.

"That's great! We'll be the best family friends ever!" Rei grinned as she put her arm over Hikari.

Soon, everything turned bright once more.

 **XXX**

"Where are we going, dad?" Ten-year old Hikari asked as Jiro took his son through the city.

"We're going to my office to pick up something," Jiro answered.

Hikari groaned as he pouted.

"Now be patient, son," Jiro playfully said. "You'll like what I have when we get there."

Soon, they had arrived just right at his office. It was more like a laboratory since there were different kinds of equipment that range from workbenches to chemistry labs. It was the dream office of any scientist or doctor.

"Do you know the project I told you about?" Jiro asked.

"You've been telling me about that," Hikari answered.

"Well, I wanted to show it to you," his father said as his took out something from his office drawer.

"Is that...?" the boy asked, looking at the handheld item in his dad's hands.

Jiro smiled at his son. "That's right. It's the Pip-Boy. It may look crude, but it's actually state-of-the-art technology. You have a map, a radio, a journal to write and can check on your health and records your inventory."

"So it's like a personal computer?" Hikari asked as he took a look.

"Yes," the inventor smiled. "And it's yours."

The young child's eyes widened. "You mean...?"

His father smiled wider. "Happy birthday, son."

In an instant, Hikari glomped his father. "Best present ever!"

"Easy there, son," Jiro chuckled. "Why don't you put it on your wrist?"

Hikari did so and tightened it's hold. In an instant, the Pip-Boy had booted up and started. "This is awesome!"

"I'm glad you liked it, son," Jiro said. "I'll be sure to check up on your Pip-Boy once I find suitable upgrades."

"Now, I want to show you a super secret feature I've installed in your Pip-Boy," he said as he took out a something from underneath his desk.

"What's that?" Hikari asked, shaking his wrist where the Pip-Boy was.

"Open it," Jiro told him. "It's a gift from the Takagi family."

It was a long rectangle box. Carefully, he tore the decorative wrapping.

"A BB gun!" The boy exclaimed.

Jiro smiled. "Yes. At first they thought that you were too young to be even holding something like that. But you've proven yourself to be a capable and responsible young boy. That, and you've proven yourself to be a good friend to Saya."

"Now, I'm going to teach you how to shoot," Jiro said.

"Shoot? Like shooting with the gun?" Hikari happily said.

"Yep," he answered. "And we're going to use my office as a makeshift shooting range."

The boy gleefully smiled as he began to open it.

"Now, I'm going to teach you what V.A.T.s is," Jiro began explaining.

Soon, everything turned bright once more.

 **XXX**

"C'mon, dad," 16-year old Hikari groaned. "Is this really necessary?"

"Son, this is your first high school exam," Jiro sternly reminded. "You might have the creativity with your science, but you need to follow the rules of your school curriculum."

While his father was proud of his son's intellectual liberties as evidenced by his Pip-Boy tinkering, he wished that Hikari could at least follow the syllabus once in a while.

"I'm amazed that you aren't bragging about how you should already graduate from high school," Jiro humorously remarked.

"Please, Saya-chan has that covered," Hikari muttered as he rolled his eyes.

Jiro chuckled before he noticed his son's forlorn expression. "Hikari, I know that you're upset about what happened with your friend Rei, but remember, you also have Saya and Koharu by your side."

Hikari looked at his father for a moment and nodded with a smile.

"Good, now enough of your angst and focus on those tests," Jiro patted his son's back. "Chop chop."

Hikari rolled his eyes and left the apartment. "Bye dad."

Hikari sighed wistfully as he made his way to school. Freshman year started off exciting. Then everything became a whirlwind of chaos once he befriended Hisashi Igou.

It felt like they had drifted apart. Cheerful and outgoing Rei was now distant and abrasive. The only one she'd open up to was Hisashi, who was more outgoing and sociable.

He admired and envied Hisashi at the same time. Hoping to muster up the courage to confess to Rei, he opted to change himself. He toned down his hobbies, he gussied up and practiced on the mirror and even tried to talk to other people.

Unfortunately, Hikari's confession was rejected. The sudden news that Rei and Hisashi were dating came like a freight train. He was too late.

Still, it was rather bittersweet. It was quite a change in his maturity as he began to open up more.

"Hey, Hinomura-kun!"

Hikari blinked as he noticed Saya glaring at him.

"Seriously, you need to really pay attention where you're going!" She chastised.

The boy turned to see the traffic light, which was red.

"Right, sorry," Hikari sheepishly replied.

"Geez, you really need to get your head out of the clouds," Saya chastised. "So what's hot you thinking?"

Should he tell her? Well...

"It's the exam," he answered. She probably knew about his issues.

"Pfft, seriously? It doesn't sound like a challenge," the pinkette boasted.

"Says the genius," he scoffed.

"That's super-genius to you!" Saya puffed her chest in pride, where her assets bounced unintentionally.

Hikari couldn't help but stare before shaking his head.

"Besides," Saya continued, not noticing his brief ogling. "You're smart too. You should be able to ace them."

"I'm not exactly...the kind of person that follows the rules," he muttered.

She scoffed. "You're just asking to be held back."

"Yeah, yeah," Hikari rolled his eyes.

Soon, they continued to make their way to school. The exams were pretty easy since he revised his notes.

Exam week was over and by the next week, the results came out.

"I got top marks!" Hikari exclaimed in happiness.

"Not bad," Saya remarked before she showed him her results. "But take a look at mine."

He rolled his eyes. "Of course you'd get full marks. You're the super-genius."

"Hmph," she smirked. "Still, you did better than your mock test."

"Hey, not my fault that I didn't know that they wouldn't allow historical liberties," Hikari defended weakly.

"Maybe if you'd actually pay attention..."

Both of them began to argue while so many watched the scene in amusement.

Later when he got back from his exams, Hikari found that the apartment was empty.

"Well, he must still be at work," he guessed. "Might as well prepare dinner."

Dad's cooking...wasn't the most ideal example of a masterpiece. It was the opposite: a disasterpiece. However unlike his father, Hikari had some modicum of culinary talents.

Maybe he inherited it from his late mother. Ah, well.

Suddenly, the apartment phone began to ring. Curious, he picked it up. "Hello?"

"Is this Hikari Hinomura?"

"Who's asking?"

"This is the Tokonosu General Hospital. It's...about your father."

Not soon the call ended, Hikari made a beeline out of the apartment.

Everything went bright once more.

 **XXX**

It had been a year since his father's murder. The trail went cold when the killer had covered their tracks. Hikari's social state went from awkward and shy to distant and stoic.

All he ever did regularly was tinker with his Pip-Boy. If not, he would sneak around to take a smoke. Not knowing about your mother was heartache, but being told that his father was shot simply shattered everything.

He did recover, but not by much. Everyone had the five stages of grief, yet depression was by far the longest period for the boy. He went back to his usual self after a long time, yet something was off about his eccentricities.

Hikari wondered how long the days would go by before he graduates.

Needless to say, he'll be graduating sooner than ever. Not by choice.

 **XXX**

 **A/N: The prologue to a new story. Had to write this. While some would say that this is a crossover between Highschool of the Dead and Fallout, I wouldn't say it that much since it only contains a handful of elements. If there are any questions about this AU, then feel free** **to ask.**

 **And yes, there's genderbending in the harem. If you guys dislike this, I'm pretty sure there's another story on the site that would be to your liking.**

 **And finally, the protagonist role. Since this is an AU, I decided to substitute Takashi with an OC. Now I know this will cause a huge ton of flack, but him as a genderbend will cause a lot of complications with the character dynamic.**

 **Now cue the angry fans wanting my blood. I actually like Takashi as a character since he's one of my favorite protagonists. This story is an experiment I've been wanting to try. Instead of a cool and calm protagonist, why not have an energetic protagonist?**

 **Things will be slow as the following chapters would be about our protagonist interacting with the characters. This story exists for me to get back into writing.**

 **Criticism is welcome.**


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